 Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim So our speaker today is Dr. Asad Tarzim. He has been designing Islamic educational programs and teaching the basics of Islam for more than a decade. After completing his bachelor degree in Islamic studies at the University of Michigan, he continued to study Islamic theology, sacred law, philosophy, and spirituality with some of the country's most prominent Muslim scholars. He has served as the curriculum director for the Dean Intensive Foundation for the last ten years, and has a particular interest in creating sustainable models of education for new and returning Muslims. He lectures and teaches courses on Islam around the country for a reason we're quite happy he's here with us today. In 2015, he released his first published work, Being Muslim a Practical Guide, a Primer on Practicing the Faith. In addition to all of that, he is also in the emergency position by training, and lives here in California with a life in three children. So please join me in introducing Dr. Asad Tarzim. Good morning everyone. Thank you all for having me. I'm honored to be with you all this morning. I will start with a traditional Muslim greeting, a salamu alaykum, may peace be upon all of you. I am the first speaker in what I understand is a four-part series. So I'm going to hope to sort of lay a bit of a bird's-eye view of the religion with some of the other speakers maybe dialing down a bit more to go into detail on some of the specific topics. So a brief outline of what we'll cover today. I would like to cover the basic beliefs and practices of Islam. I'll talk a little bit about the Islamic view of spirituality. And then unfortunately nowadays you can't talk just about what Islam is. You have to clarify what Islam isn't. So we'll get into a few of the misconceptions about Islam. Before I begin, I'd like to do what I call a goodwill agreement. I come here to share my perspective with you and I presume each of you has goodwill in being here. So you can ask any question without fear of me presuming that it is out of any ill will. So I presume all questions are welcome. Anything that comes to mind, please don't feel embarrassed to ask. Sometimes if something is on your mind it's on other people's minds as well. And then maybe we can flush it out to the best of my ability and if I can't, you've got three better speakers coming soon that you can see. All right. Does that sound fair? Okay. So we'll begin. I would like to talk about a couple of definitions. So there is a word Islam and there is a word Muslims. Okay. So I want to talk a little bit about each. The word Islam is an Arabic word. Semitic roots, they have three. They have trilateral roots. It is a word that its root means Saniha, to be whole, to be at peace. And Islam, literally if you were to put in a dictionary the word Islam in Arabic dictionary it would mean to surrender oneself over to, to resign oneself over obviously to God is the religious connotation. You could say in any context linguistically that it means to surrender oneself over to. But because of the root it does entail some of these other connotations of wholeness, of peace, of serenity. And a Muslim, and again this has to do with sort of Arabic morphology is one who engages in that act of surrender. So Islam is the religion. A Muslim is one who follows that religion. It's a little easier with something like Christian and Christianity. You just sort of put the I.T. by the end. With Islam it's a little trickier because of the Semitic roots. So a Muslim is one who surrenders himself over to God thereby attaining peace and serenity in their lives. That is sort of the connotation there. Now a Muslim can be from any ethnicity, race, any walk of life. What is the most popular Muslim country in the world? Indonesia. Yeah, right? Southeast Asia. Not what people will think of when they think of Muslims if you just watch the news. Muslims can be from all walks of life. Some famous American Muslims that we all know. We lost Muhammad Ali last year. Iconic figure, famous worldwide and was very outspoken about his faith as well. Another one that people are always talking about, Kat Stevens became used with Islam, attracted a lot of attention with leaving music for a more spiritual pursuit. So Muslims can be from all walks of life. The question then comes and says what does Islam think of itself? How does Islam view itself in the bigger picture? In order to do that I think it's important to understand how does Islam view all of humanity. So we believe that God created the heavens and the earth and he created mankind and he created mankind for a purpose and he wanted that purpose to be communicated to them. So he sent a series of messengers and prophets. So we believe that God created Adam and Eve and after Adam and Eve there was Noah, there was Abraham, there was Moses, there was Jacob and there was Isaiah and all of these people that God sent in order to communicate how He wanted humans to live their lives. And so in understanding Islam it's important to understand how Islam sees itself in the rest of human history. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, has a famous tradition in which he says prophets like parables a lot. He says, my coming to you is like a large and beautiful building where people are walking around and saying this is such a beautiful structure, isn't this such a beautiful building except there's one brick right there that's missing and he says I am that last brick. And so he taught his followers that he was completing the missions of Abraham and of Jesus and of Moses and of Noah and all of these other prophets. Not to replace or remove but to complete and that's very important to understand how Islam sees a prophet living. Muslims also believe that we know of 25 prophets mentioned in our Holy Book of Quran which I'll talk about briefly but we also have a tradition from the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him that says God sent over 124,000 prophets to humanity and no community existed except that God sent to them His message. So when the Muslims believed we wouldn't specify and say so and so was a prophet outside of the 25 that are identified but we could entertain that the Native American people had prophets from God. We could entertain that the Asians had prophets from God that all of these people that know people were left without guidance from God. Now prophets had one unified message with some variables so in the Muslim belief all messengers come with a basic creedal foundation which is there's only one God. They all came with that message. Now the specific teachings around that how to live the life, whether not to keep the Sabbath, etc all of those things vary from community to community. So Muslims will often distinguish between the creed and law. Law varies from community to community, changes with time but the unifying foundation of all of this is the oneness and unity of God. So for Muslims there are some who theorize that maybe Buddha was a prophet for example. Muslims would say that's possible. No one can confirm that those are interesting theories and there's many Muslim scholars who have written about this but we wouldn't deny that possibility as well. And what this does and I think the reason I'm sharing this is it's important to be able to appreciate truth within other traditions. And it's all too often to say well we follow the Prophet Muhammad, he's the last brick and so we have a purest form but you don't have to, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can dismiss all of the other truths out there in the world. I think anyone who studies great world religions like Buddhism or Confucianism or Taoism cannot deny that there are eternal truths buried therein that come from a divine source. So whether or not that comes from earlier prophets and those peoples etc is unknown. I'd like to talk a little bit about how Islam fits within the Abrahamic faith. So I kind of went through the world religions. If you narrow it down into the Abrahamic faiths Islam sees itself as again the culmination of what was a gradually revealed revelation from Abraham. As many of you probably know the Prophet Muhammad used to be part of the descendant of the patriarch Abraham. He's through Ishmael in that lineage. And in fact the city of Mecca. Who here must have heard of the city of Mecca? You know who the founder of the city of Mecca was? Abraham. So it was a barren valley and he went with Hagar and Ishmael and the barren valley and they found it in the city and they found a well there. That's actually mentioned in the Bible finding the well when Ishmael God heard the babe when he spoke and the spring poured forth. It was called the valley of Pecca in the Bible. And in ancient Arabia it was with a B and the B and the M have a shared cognation in the Arabic language. And so it comes from that line and the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon himself as the continuation of the legacy of Jesus Christ. And we'll talk a little bit more about that shortly but I want to get into Islam. So what is Islam? Islam is a religion, it's an Abrahamic religion and I think the best summary of the religion comes from a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. And this event happens probably within two to three months before he passes. And that's significant because Islamic scholars say that this is late in his mission and therefore a great summary of everything that he's ever taught. But the story says that one day the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was gathered with his companions and there came a mysterious figure who the description says who was dressed in stark white clothing and had jet black hair and there was no dirt on his clothes and he had no signs of travel. Now what's so unique about that everybody knew everybody in that town. So if you were a stranger you had to have come from travel by horseback or by camel or whatever the mode of travel might have been and you would not have cleaned white clothing and so they were surprised and who is this person and why is it clear that he didn't just travel here where did he come from? And this mysterious figure sits next to the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and he asks him a series of questions. Now this series of questions it's going to be what I quiz you on at the end of the talk is the great summary of Islam. This is what many scholars would call the three dimensions of Islam. Now if you know the three dimensions then you know the complete spirit but if you leave out one of the dimensions you have it in balance is what ends up happening. So he asks him three questions and he asks him, oh Muhammad tell me what is Islam? Now what's interesting is Islam is the name of the religion but he clearly asks him in a very particular fashion about the dimension of Islam within the broader religion and the Prophet Muhammad states five actions who here has heard of the five pillars of Islam? So that is the answer to this question so that's only one of three dimensions we hear about the five pillars as if it's the great summary of the religion but he says to him Islam is that you testify that there is nothing worthy of worship other than God and that Muhammad is his final messenger so the first is a testimony that is the way by which anyone becomes a believer in Islam that is the way in which you enter into the faith and you testify there isn't a formal baptism or other religions have a more formal process specifically to pronounce that while believing it in your heart and then he says the second pillar of practice and that is to pray five times a day so Muslims based on the position of the sun five times every day will offer a ritual prayer now this isn't a prayer like oh God please let me do great on this exam let me get that job interview we pray like that as well Muslims tend to use the word supplication for that which is very specific but a prayer which is simply to worship God to praise him and to take him for everything he's given us in our lives at five points in a day one is right when dawn breaks before sunrise the second is that after the sun starts to descend from high noon the third is in the afternoon the third is just after sunset and the fourth is when it's completely dark outside so based on the position of the sun we stop, watch ourselves ritually face the city of Micah and we perform the prayer for those who are curious it probably takes seven minutes on average for prayer and whether you're at work or in school you have to, you should make time to take a break and sort of reconnect and realign yourself the third pillar of practice is the fast so there is a lump of in the lunar calendar the ninth lunar month is called Ramadan and Muslims fast this if you are able if you're not pregnant or nursing or elderly or sick or too weak you fast from the break of dawn until sunset which means no food, drink or relations, marital relations you're afraid from those three abstinence from sunrise start from dawn until sunset so it's a lunar calendar so it shifts winter is very easy to do you're talking about 5 a.m. to almost 5 p.m. summer you're talking about probably a 4-ish a.m. if I remember correctly until about 9 p.m. that's no water that's a common question no water? yeah, no water as well now if you notice each of these answers is in action to be done so Islam is the dimension of action of practice it is right conduct so some will summarize the pillars within as pillars of practice the fourth is to give what's called the vortex by some people or the purifying aum so every Muslim who's above the poverty line must give and this is a must its charity is what's beyond that but everybody owes 2.5% of their unused savings if they're above the poverty line so this is not on everything one makes but whatever is residual from what you use over the course of the year for yourself or your family or your dependents must be given to those that are in need and this is interestingly enough something that is deemed to be their right that's their money that we are in possession of if we're above the poverty line so we're not doing them a favor holding their right if we do not pay it out charity is to go beyond that and to give an addition and then it's an encouraged act but not necessarily mandatory the fifth is to make a pilgrimage once in your life if you are financially and physically able to the holy city of Mecca founded yet by Abraham who here has seen a picture of the Kaabah the sacred house that was built by Abraham and Ishmael that foundation was laid by them that's been rebuilt from floods and different damage etc but it stays in the same location so to go and visit the sites of Abraham and Hajj Al-Hagar is a requirement once for lifetime so these are the pillars of practice then this mysterious speaker, remember this is a conversation he says to the Prophet Muhammad we have spoken correctly and the narrator of the story says and we were surprised we were confused how he would ask him the question and then tell him he had spoken correctly and then he asked him a second question he said, oh Muhammad, tell me what is Imam, what is faith and so the Prophet Muhammad instead of saying what faith was he talked about the objects of faith faith is to believe in God and to believe in his angels to believe in his messengers to believe in the scriptures to believe that he sends to believe in the day of judgment so these are all pillars of practice no one has proper faith in our creed unless one believes in God that's obviously hopefully obvious but you must believe in all messengers you cannot say I believe in the Prophet Muhammad but Noah, I'm not sure about that you must believe in all of the prophets you have to believe in all of the scriptures now we believe we believe that there was the gospel sent to Jesus we believe in the Torah sent to Moses we believe in the Psalms of David and we believe in what are called the scripture of Abraham now we will confirm the revelation of these whether or not their remnants exist so for example the scripture of Abraham there is nothing there that remains of it that we know when it comes to the other scripture again I'm being very clear about how Muslims understand this Muslim belief holds that over time the history the authenticity and the accuracy of these decay and then God sends another revelation the authenticity and accuracy decayed over time and God sends another clarification through a separate revelation with the revelation of the Quran God states in the Quran and we'll talk about the Quran more in a separate session two in depth here that it will be protected from decay and corruption and so this is declared as the final revelation to mankind but we also believe in the day of judgment that each of us will stand before our creator held accountable for the decisions we make in this world whether they were moral decisions or whether we chose to obey our lesser selves but we believe that nobody escapes that divine justice on that day so we obviously believe in a life after death believing in divine reward and punishment we believe in heaven and hell we believe that it is faith that earns you know you have the famous is it a faith or works question the Muslim would say we would say both it's faith but it also requires works to then earn God's favor so the sort of prerequisite would be faith followed by how have you lived your life so we believe that a believing Muslim could spend time and hell temporarily to purge them of their sins and use their wretched life or God could choose to forgive them and enter them into paradise but belief is what we are all held accountable to do in our lifetimes and then we try our best with the works thereafter and the last the sixth object of faith that we believe in what's called divine decree and this is a Muslim belief that all things in the world our meeting here today was only the result of God's willing it into existence and nothing happened outside of his control that we have free will yet we are limited in our free will by God's allowing things to happen so that is both a source of faith and it's a source of strength that for typically you'll see a Muslim who goes through a very grievous situation like the passing of a relative with the loss of wealth something like that and realize there's another famous statement of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him that no one can bring you benefit or harm save God and he says in this tradition that if all of mankind and all of the jinn we believe in in a separate dimension spirits were to gather to bring you benefit that God did not write for you to obtain they could not bring you benefit and if all of humanity were to gather to harm you and God did not allow for you to be harmed then they would not be able to harm you but we have to pardon my Abraham being thrown into the fire that's a biblical story as well okay alright well I'm going to share a story I'm not sure if it's there we believe that Abraham first declared his monotheism to his people they faltered and they were very yes so in our tradition the king there said let us create a large fire we're going to burn Abraham we're going to burn him alive so they stoked a fire for days a festival of it and they made a catapult to cast him into this fire and we have a tradition that when Abraham was cast into it God said to the fire be cool and peaceful for Abraham so even fire cannot burn you unless God decrees it so we believe in God's complete dominion over his creation and again the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was met with a you have spoken correctly okay after the second question perfect because he's defining these terms Ahsan is a word in Arabic that literally means to make him beautiful but this is the third dimension of Islam so the first were the pillars of practice the second was faith and now the third has to do with character faith, character and conduct are the three the three dimensions of Islam and so he asked him what is Ahsan what is it to make oneself and soul beautiful and the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him he answers not with the process or how to obtain it but what that result looks like and he says it is to be in a state in which you worship God as if you can see him but you know that even if you cannot see him that he always sees you so this is what the scholars will talk about is a state of constant awareness and connection to God every moment so the result of the spiritual purification is that you will enter a state in which you are always present with God and God is always present in the heart this takes two main modes in the Islamic tradition so there is the belief that we have we are composite beings we're not just a body we're a soul we're not just a soul we have an ego as well and part of the spiritual process is to learn how to suppress the ego so we all know that it's human nature to be angry easy to be spiteful jealous to covet things and so part of the path of spiritual purification is to remove these negative qualities from our hearts so the first wing of the spiritual process is to purge oneself of what we call the mortal the mortal defects of the soul and the second is to adorn oneself with the positive qualities so to be generous, to be forgiving to be loving, to be merciful to be altruistic these are all things that we have to inculcate in ourselves often requires effort some are better at it than others naturally but that takes effort from us all but when we engage in this process the end resulted that we can be in a state in which we see God in everything we see God's hand in everything and we are aware of His watching us any questions so far? we can hold questions until the end yes that's a good question I'm going to repeat this question because I'm not sure so when we talk about David and Joseph etc. I'm saying the names in English are the names different than Arabic yes because they're Hebrew names so Moses is Musa in Arabic and the Arabic is very close to Hebrew their cousin languages and then Joseph is Yusuf for example Abraham is Ibrahim so there are Arabic cognates of each of those but with these three dimensions sorry one thing I kind of want to tie together is with these three dimensions we have with faith conduct and character we have what we believe to be a total reflection and surrender to God of mind, body and soul so with our mind we have thoughts and beliefs and perceptions if you believe the world is flat or you don't believe that there's a continent called Australia right you can have that belief that's an error of thought and it's an inconsistency of what you believe with the reality of the world around you so we believe that proper belief so if you don't believe in God then you have a false belief about the true nature of the world, the reality of the world so faith is for the mind to have correct thoughts about the world then we have the body which are the actions and Islam is founded on these five pillars but it actually encompasses all of human action so it's obviously things like do not lie, do not steal, do not cheat etc these are things we do physically in the world so that's how we would surrender our bodies over to God and then of our soul there are times in which we smile and we do nice physical things to people but inside we think very negative thoughts right and so how do we surrender our soul and our very thought and our very being to God is through this third dimension of accent so it's a mind, body and soul surrender to God to contextualize it a little bit in terms of what you all might be familiar with Judaism in comparison to Christianity is a very legalistic tradition would that be a fair thing to say I don't mean that in a slight I don't mean that in a negative sense in comparison Christianity is a great rich spiritual tradition Islam sees itself as the fusion of the rich legal tradition with the great spiritual tradition and that you have both the letter and the spirit of the law combined and that you must know the supremacy of the spirit over the letter but that it is through both that the law is an enraged yes I think we have a question there I have a question about the fourth pillar you know when I talk about it's mandatory to make a contribution of two and a half percent where does that go I kind of get the impression that Islam unlike Christianity is this is probably my argument not quite as structured as Christianity organizational structure clergy Islam of course has temples emails but I just have kind of curious my two and a half percent given the temple do I give it to somebody on the street curious about it it's up to you so you have a lot of leeway and who you can give it to what we're on limits is who's eligible for it so you have to genuinely be for it you can't give me your two rich people can't say hey I'll give you my two and a half percent so you have to be eligible for it and there are eight categories of people who can be eligible for it traditionally historically while we don't have a centralized church in that way centralized mosque authority people would either give it on their own most people will give it to family members where you have relatives maybe distant relatives are not immediate relatives but we are encouraged to take care of those nearest to us first instead of sending money to the flood in such and such place on the other side of the world which is good you can't neglect your neighbor that you know is going through something that's more difficult so you have some leeway there there was a centralized system in the past where if somebody you know they reached out to people who didn't know who to give it to and so they would give it to sort of there I I should even compare it to a system in which the government is aware of what we do with our money there used to be a centralized government where you could give it and somebody could then come to the government and say I'm in need I don't have money and they say here we have this fund of money from the poor tax but that's not manager that's not how you have to give it here people will just give it to people that they know are in need yes we're going to get the mic back to you and continue a bit more after this I'm going to finish up and we'll take time for questions can you explain the practice or ritual of blessing the name of Muhammad with the way that you did because I noticed you did it every time I think there were a couple of times in the beginning when you were explaining the history where you did not is it every time so for all of the prophet's name sometimes what we'll do is if it's a longer sentence and it just becomes cumbersome with audiences that are used to it but if I were to say Jesus, Moses and Abraham peace be upon them all are all prophets so if I'm going to use them in a sentence continuously sometimes we'll do one honorific at the end of that but it's something that we say for all prophets that may God's peace be upon them the prophet Muhammad has a special status as the seal of all prophets and so for us we will say may peace be upon him pretty much every time but sometimes what we'll do is if I just said it two seconds ago and I'm kind of continuing it tends to be something so it is something that we try to say for all prophets so for non-muslims is that something you would expect them to do or is it something that's just required of no I wouldn't say that's something that we would expect I think there are you know people of other faiths, there's a Jewish professor out in Yale I've noticed in all his lectures we'll say it as an honorific but if someone doesn't believe in him being a prophet we consider disrespectful to not say that I think it would be appreciated if somebody would honor that other people honor but by no means an expectation. One more question and then I'm going to try to yes yes so we have the 10 commandments so the question was do we have the equivalent of 10 commandments in a limited fashion outlined like that no but the 10 commandments are part of the Quran they're present in the Quran and they're all listed there there are other commandments that go beyond that but they again what we would believe is that they are for the Muslims so if you don't believe in Islam you won't be held accountable for this but the 10 commandments we believe are Abrahamic that everyone that is of an Abrahamic faith should be adhering to that so with your permission I'm going to continue on and then I wanted to talk very briefly about and then we can open up any questions that you might have I want to open up very briefly on the misconceptions so I don't have another speaker who's going to speak about the Quran another one who's going to speak about the relationship between Islam and Christianity but I'd like to speak a little bit about some of the misconceptions unfortunately we live in a time in which I think the misunderstandings about Islam have probably never been higher with as much access to information that we have it's a double-edged sword so we can live in this time where we have access to accurate information and so that should fix everything or we can have access to really inaccurate information and that can confound everything that all is compounded by the existence of small fraction groups that do really painless and horrible things and claim to be representing Islam personally and Muslims have different feelings about this this is a really difficult topic for Muslims it's a source of frustration it's a source of quite a lot of brief I personally think that if I weren't Muslim and I probably lived like most people I think I would have a good deal of misunderstandings about Islam I would tip my hat to all of you for taking the time to really seek out and educate yourself but if I were exposed to I probably would just say it's going on there but we live in a day and age in which we are not as worried we don't live in silos and islands anymore we can go out and connect and meet people one of the great tragedies is that and I want this to be your theme to understanding each of the misconceptions that we're going to bring up here there's the great problem in all religion of using religion to inspire versus justify we know that but they say this and this and this in your scripture we all know especially if you have teenage children something can be used to justify just as much as it can be to inspire and you can often come up with two radically different conclusions if you read something you say what does this one what is the intention of this versus I want to do this and can I use this scripture to justify and I think if you simply use that lens you can make a lot of sense you can make much more sense out of a lot of this madness okay that's one tool I put in our toolbox the second is to understand that there is no there's nothing called Islam in the world there's no Islam devoid of human application and understanding of there's no pristine Plato has the forms there's no Islam that exists in a pristine place where we can go and see Islam in this room they're Muslims and they're going to apply it as they would like and we're very well aware that the intersection of religion and politics can lead to a lot of working of religion for the sake of politics so if you use the second lens geopolitics sometimes does this just being a bunch of humans who have political problems does that explain what's going on or is this really the religion that teaches this and I think those two things will be very helpful I'm not an expert in geopolitics if you were to ask me about ISIS I can talk about some of the like Islamic law aspects that they that they contravene and contradict but I couldn't tell you if it's the power of acting that was left by taking Saddam but there's people who've written long long books about this they're complex issues but they're clearly not solely a religious or legal issue this is global geopolitics at play but the first that I'd like to start with and I'm going to ask everybody to help me out here just let me know if this is something you've heard or maybe even think or believe yourself who's heard Islam was spread by the sword first Islam was spread by the sword right heard it that is something that I would say is still said quite often nowadays and not just by wacky people who have their agenda there are people who really hold this opinion so was Islam spread by the sword it's a historical question so I'll answer that shortly but Islam be spread by the sword is a separate question so was it and Ken so for the was the answer is no you simply have to sort of look at history anybody who knows one of the easiest exercises to do is who's aware of what's happening with ISIS in Iraq Christian minorities Zoroastrian minorities you guys somewhat aware of hearing of these things so think about it how are their Christian minorities still there right for ISIS to now harm right so you have Christian minorities in Syria in Iraq in Egypt in Morocco you can find out the minorities now we're talking about a 14th century history if it was conversion by the sword in medieval times that was an acceptable practice right then you had the Inquisition right you had all of that happen that was just what people did back then right you could get what might be right in that world you didn't have the Geneva Convention in the UN right that's just what happened so these minorities existed who's heard of minorities right minorities where does he learn and rise to prominence in the Muslim world right in muslim Spain right so religious minorities were protected and even flourished under muslim rule for over a millennium right so the fact that they're now being harmed we should be able to realize well the fact that they're there means it's not intrinsic to Islam something's happening now in which some wackos want to just fight everybody that doesn't agree with them but the fact that they're there there's Jews in Morocco in Libya in Algeria in Iraq and Yemen they still have their communities and their synagogues right and let's be very honest religious liberty wasn't great in Europe for a period so I mean in those times that was an anomaly that wait you're in power and you're allowing a minority to kind of do their thing for a long time you're allowing them to rise in the ranks of your government and become ministers so some was not spread by the sword nor can it be spread by the sword it's sort of a contradiction in terms surrender and faith are by their very nature voluntary but there's actually an explicit verse in the Quran which says there is no coercion in faith you cannot coerce someone to have faith and actually there's a very interesting verse where God is trying to console the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him preaching to his people they're all prophets they're fighting him and they're casting him out and he's preaching to them and they're torturing his followers and God says to them do you think you can force these people to convert you're so he was so grieving over there wanting them to accept guidance and God says it's not in your hands you convey your responsibility is to convey God's message if they don't accept it you can't make them drink don't lose sleep over this you simply convey to the best of your ability but the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was so full of mercy that he wanted their salvation so deeply that it bothered him so that would be my response to was this long spread by the sword is that the proof is in the pudding you have so many flourishing non-muslim communities in muslim lands the second is what is jihad right you hear this word it is a word that unfortunately has started to have negative connotations for muslims it tends to have a positive connotation particularly more than like 20 years ago, 15 years ago it had a very positive connotation jihad means something like a noble struggle and it could be used in any context there's actually two types of jihad in muslim tradition there is what is called the greater jihad and the lesser jihad the greater jihad let's start with the lesser jihad the lesser jihad is to defend oneself physically, military right so we're being invaded and you know you can't even think of this on a community level right we're being invaded and some people pick up pitchforks and say we're going to defend our kids and that's a type of jihad that's a struggle you are putting yourself on the line in order to help others in order to serve others in order to protect your land one day the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was returning from a battle just like that where people were coming to exterminate the muslims and on the way back the Prophet Muhammad says we are leaving from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad and they said they're battle weary they're exhausted what is the greater jihad we just like almost died back there it is the battle of your ego it is the spiritual battle and in fact in muslim tradition it's commonly said that one cannot engage in the lesser jihad unless it conquers their own ego right it is a prerequisite to use force that you are spiritually balanced there's a great writer Robert Bly he talks about the difference between a warrior and a soldier even in our terms in our minds those are different if you think of a samurai warrior that is a noble person who spends so much time in spiritual discipline in order to use his mastery of the sword to defend the weak whereas nowadays when you have soldiers it's not to take away from you can just sign up in a matter of weeks in front of the opportunity to take a life with no spiritual discipline with no training without anybody really guiding you and giving you that moral compass it's simply a function it's pulling a trigger pressing a button etc so is terrorism jihad it's a good question I do think it is there's a great British muslim scholar Timothy Winter who coined this and I think it's very useful he says terrorism is to jihad what adultery is to marriage but terrorism is to jihad what adultery is to marriage I don't think that requires much commentary I really don't I think we can see about certain acts might look the same but they're done in very different ways with a very different spirit one is a really vile violation of one of the ten commandments and one is a great union that can be the foundation of a family so this is something that muslims truly believe that jihad is a means to defend the weak to defend religious liberty actually there's a verse in the Quran which talks about the use of force and God says permission has been granted for those who have been expelled and kicked out of their homes because when the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him brought his message all of the muslims were kicked out of their homes oppressed, tortured some of them were killed and so they fled and they went to another city and God says in the Quran permission has been granted to those who have been expelled from their homes because they've been oppressed and God can grant them victory but I want to get to the rest of the verse those who were kicked out of their homes without any right other than they said we believe in God our Lord is God and then God talks tells us the reason for defense that violence is an inescapable part of human nature so when is it appropriate and when is it inappropriate and to what extent it's all about the regulation there's a country on earth whether it's an army or a police force or somebody has to sanction what is a justified use of violence when the state engages in violence it has to have its protocol you have to know to what extent how much force was used was it appropriate etc but God tells us the reason for defense he says had God not used one group to repel another then churches, synagogues monasteries and temples so not just mosques this is literally churches you can look it up in any churches, synagogues temples and mosques would be destroyed in which God's name is praised so the primary reason the scholars say for defense is to our first amendment freedom of religion our country was founded by people seeking this religious freedom so that is what you had is that the essence is protecting the weak and the heart one more and then maybe we can open it up to questions the last one is and I don't feel right speaking about this but it's just sort of a necessary evil is women in Islam we're going to have a couple women speakers if you have a question save them for a minute but just to share this what does Islam hold about women what does Islam believe about women one of the and I'm really trying to share not a like polished PR version of Islam I'm trying to say if you walk into our house what would we be talking about everything I've shared with you today is my attempt to genuinely convey how we understand our religion so Islam sees people as human beings who have diverse cultures and understandings but all of us share in a humanity that we cannot escape many of the things we see on TV that kind of freak us all out most of them tend to be culture once you examine it more deeply you have cultural expressions some of those cultural trends existed before Islam reached those lands and they just sort of stayed on there but in the end these genders are signs of God so there's a person in the Quran that talks about that God's creating Adam and Eve think about it we all are powerful could have created one gender that had like some type of asexual reproduction right and we could have all I mean think what it's possible it's conceivable but God created Adam and Eve and in that it's a sign of God in that it's a sign of the deep beauty of the human experience in the Muslim tradition behold that there are qualities that are praiseworthy some of them are strength and courage courage is one of the four moral virtues right strength and courage men tend to sort of have a bit of that those who consider the easier ones to have and acquire forgiveness mercy these are the ones that really define God if you open up any Quran does anybody know what it opens with the opening phrase of every chapter of the Quran this will be a good one if someone knows this what is every in the name of God the compassionate the merciful every chapter of the Quran say one starts with in the name of God the compassionate the merciful these are the qualities that are most central to God God is the just right nobody wants to say oh God be just with me right we say oh God forgive me oh God pardon me right we all want forgiveness for our shortcomings and these are the qualities that are seen that would save humanity if we embody them and they tend to be again there are exceptions but they tend to be more present in women than they are in men there is a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad where he says that God said and this is God speaking in the first person and you have to know Arabic a little bit to fully appreciate this but the word for boom and the word for mercy is and the word for God being the all merciful is so God says I have made my name I have made the word for womb a cognate of my mercy and so whoever cuts off kin the ties of the womb literally from him they will be cut off from me and so we are told that the womb and if you think about this the womb is really the the seat of God's creative miracle on earth right so we talk about God being the creator that really takes place in the womb so there is something very esteemed about that so the woman has a very special rank in Islam there is obviously in Islamic a personal code a difference in how men and women are to cover there is what is considered an appropriate covering for women differs from men that shouldn't be understood in any way of preference or superiority or all of these words really loaded in charge of the words that people put in but a difference that men and women are different and I would argue that women's beauty far exceeds men so that makes sense but that is Islam's recognition I think on one level of protecting women from what can be objectification and I think if anybody here is even slightly familiar with the marketing industry how much money is pumped into the verification of women we can see that people can do that if they don't have barriers in the way and that's something that has happened throughout human history is still happening even as sort of enlightened as we are we go drive by billboards and like the grocery stand and it's a degrading display I think of how we honor women there is a tradition that the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said the heaven is under the feet of mothers so the mother particularly women in general but the mother in particular has a heightened status in Islam a man came to the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and he said after God and his messenger who do I have to commit myself to the most who has the most right over me and the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said your mother and then who after that he said your mother he said who after that he said then your father and this is a famous thing that all Muslim mothers throw out three times it's three times as many hugs and kisses and that's that whole Muslim men sort of throw out their hand but that the mother is a very honored position and even Mary in our tradition obviously revered as the most highest woman in humanity who often is depicted as cover and pines and modest these are things that don't mean much modesty isn't really a virtue for people to throw out what a modest thing to do or how modest that person is but Mary really personified that and in fact in certain Muslim scholars actually debate whether or not Mary was a prophet but she's obviously the mother of Jesus and that in itself is right we do believe about Jesus just to clarify a couple of things and then we can open up for questions we hold that Jesus was born of a virgin birth so we share that with the Christian faith we hold that he is the Messiah whereas our Jewish brothers and sisters differ with us on that we're still waiting for the Messiah we believe that Jesus is the Messiah we believe that he is coming back at the end of time we believe in an anti Christ I'll hold all my jokes right we believe in an anti Christ we actually believe in what we would call a culture of the anti Christ which precedes the anti Christ so you have some of his minions come out and really create an environment in which truth is treated as falsehood and lies are considered as truth and inversion so that culture precedes the coming of the anti Christ but we believe that Jesus comes back at the end of days as well where Muslims do differ from Christians is that we do not hold Jesus to be divine we believe Jesus to be a prophet I might have actually used him as an example we hold him to be a prophet a created being and I know this wide variability Christian theology so I believe fully human and fully God is the Episcopalian physician I think this would be closer to like an Aryan physician that he was created human prophet that he is the son of God in a metaphorical sense but not God the son in a literal sense would be the moral definition but that he was God Lee most definitely and so he is someone greatly revered I know many Muslims whose names are Issa which is the Arabic word for Jesus very revered many people will name their children but I hope that gives you sort of a brief overview of the fact that Islam has many cultures under it there is complex theological questions that one could spend much time on I don't consider myself an expert in Islam it's not a statement of humility it's sort of it's sort of like I just I but I know true experts in Islam but if you have any questions I would be happy to share them and discuss what might come my question has to do with how is the Quran interpreted in such a way that there are people that are wanting to create a caliphate or an Islamic state very good question so the word caliph is not really in the Quran in the sense of an Islamic state or a caliphate so it's not really a Quranic problem the Quran talks about general values and principles such as ensuring justice and ensuring order and society and safety for people how Muslims choose to do that is up to them caliphate was a system that worked caliphate only existed for 30-something years after that morphed into a whole lot of things you had dynasties and you had emperors and sultans those who come to your question is where do those who call for it get it from and it's a puritanical desire to go back to this pristine sort of let's recreate something that existed for a glimmer of history there's a funny story that there were four caliphs after the Prophet Muhammad these are sort of like his four closest companions and they were political rulers after he passed there started to turmoil started to happen in the midst of those four caliphs there was people who were being people the emperors started to expand there were conflicts there were battles for power and one day a man came to the fourth caliph and he said why in your reign is there so much turmoil in the reign of Abu Bakr and Omar so the first and the second caliph so caliph number four why was it so great under caliph one and two and we have so much turmoil and he said well because when they were caliphs they had followers like me now that I'm caliph I have followers like you pretty funny story but there's that's a very romantic picture we know that we don't have the deciding of the companions of the Prophet who's going to create such a pristine thing so I think it's sort of like I really would compare it to like Leninism to some extent this idea that I can create a utopian vision we can get it right and even if we have to kill a whole lot of people to make it happen it's a great idea in theory and we can make it work and they've just convinced themselves a very strict understanding of how to assemble them to the government but there's no directive in Islam to assemble a caliphate and the vast majority of Muslim scholars why they dropped that subject a long time ago yeah absolutely I want to have a simple answer think there was another question does that mean just the different places good question I would distinguish here between following and believing in so the belief is to affirm their prophethood so for the 25 prophets we simply have to affirm their prophethood that I have to believe that Joseph was a prophet I have to believe that Jacob was a prophet I'm not committed to follow them because not all of them have a religion with teachings that would really pass down to follow but I have to believe in them but it does also open up that door that we as Muslims part of the Muslim belief is that the Prophet Muhammad so he told him to be a prophet said that there were 124,000 prophets open to prophethood having been all over the world and I think that you don't have to specifically say they say so and so was a prophet I have to believe in him that becomes optional at that point the 25 that are named in the Quran and there are a few actually for those who are curious there are a few that are in the Quran but not in Bible so if you guys are familiar with I would say probably 21 out of the 25 there are other prophets that were on the Arabian Peninsula that are not because Judaism Christianity was for the tribes of Israel and that was their prophet but God sent prophets to all other types of people we believe that the Prophet Muhammad and he says this explicitly was sent to all people that it wasn't sent to just the Arabs or the Israelites but it was sent to all the humanity one of the interesting things is the Jews were actually in the city of Medina and there was no migration to awaiting the coming messenger because they had in their scriptures that they thought he was going to be Jewish so when it was from the line of Ishmael there was some resistance and they did not follow him by on March but it was yes my name is Ray I'm thinking about anti-Islam sentiment and lack of understanding about our country it has seemed to me that there's been a dearth of voices Islamic voices speaking out against places etc etc but as I think about what that might look like I guess I'm wondering what you think about that you're here helping to change or educate one heart and mind at a time and we in this congregation maybe in the Bay Area are open to that but there's an awful lot of headline graphic stuff going on that is completely un-nuanced and I'm wondering what your sense is of what would need to happen in this corner of the world to counteract this misinformation if you have an idea about that that's a great question there's a question we hear quite often and it's one of those things that I've given quite a lot of thought to interestingly enough in the Bay Area what I think is one of the best hidden secrets of the Bay Area the most influential Muslim scholar in the Western Hemisphere teaches in Berkeley and so we have some of the biggest powerhouses of Islam he goes to the Muslim world it's thousands of people packing a haul just to see him one of the great tragedies is we have to I'm just putting it out there it's not a critique, I'm not making any other political commentary it's the media he always jokes he says if I wanted to call Jihad against America I'd be on CNN and I'd sell a million books and I'd be a millionaire and I'd be done if any of us really have financial problems say you hate Islam and you love Islam it's the worst religion in the world and write a book about it and you'll it'll be a best seller there isn't a whole lot of interest in that if you simply Google how many people here I'm just out of curiosity have Googled Muslims condemning ISIS do that, I encourage you just because the perception is have Muslims condemned ISIS you will see pages and not Muslims are saying can we stop condemning ISIS, it's all we do all day long can we just stop it already they think everybody in the world has heard us a thousand times enough of this already right Muslim scholars leaders cannot get the type of platform that would make that effective now, here comes my commentary I'm trying to be objective that serves someone's agenda I have to there is an agenda when you need an other and you have military conquests in certain places etc there are also ratings to keep in mind if I was part of a plot to undermine this church and I got caught, yeah that's much nice and sane this church held a great talk and there was a good conversation this won't make the news and I wanted to bring harm to you all that would make it news that's sort of what we're stuck with there's a website called Baghdadi is the last name of the head of ISIS so if you've got a letter to Baghdadi.com it's a letter signed by 300 and something of the top Muslim scholars in the world from all schools everything in between all condemning and arguing with Baghdadi telling him that he has opposed the absolute foundation of Islam with his way unfortunately it just it's a source of frustration for Muslims and I think we're making progress in these small settings because I know for sure we won't make it in larger mainstream media because and the reason that I know that is because we've had people who we would deem the brightest and best and they've been totally shut out in the media and it's not like the media doesn't know them they've done pieces on them but when it comes they would rather have a really controversial figure than somebody who really represents Muslims up there I know that the divisions between sex is certainly not Islam Christians have certainly fought each other but I just wanted to shed a little light on the Sunni Shiite division sure that's a good question the Sunni Shiite division is I'll just frame it this way it wasn't a problem before 20 years ago Shiites and Sunnis are different sects of Islam and they do have a type of competitive nature between one another as do all sects of religions but there has never been a violent history prior to the late 20th century between them there were empires that were primarily Shiite that overtook political sort of dimensions but generally speaking Iraq is a great example as is Syria people will tell you if you speak to someone over the age of 60 when we were children we didn't know this neighbor was Christian this neighbor was Druze anyone else was and it didn't matter similarly Jews and Muslims and Palestine will tell you how many of you have heard they've been fighting each other for hundreds of years no they weren't not before 1947 1949 we've got to look at things with the geopolitical lens of it traditionally there is no real history of violence between Sunnis and Shiites and particularly in those regions I think once you destabilize and you create the nation state model where each people have to now fend for their individual rights as it becomes a zero sum game then you're going to have everybody sort of that can happen anywhere if you have in this country rights break out in certain areas you have people sort of hunker down into their groups because of conflict but that didn't pre-exist that conflict is coming Theologically Theologically a very good question Theologically the primary the primary division is over what is the best way to lead the community after the death of the Prophet Muhammad please be upon him the Prophet Muhammad had grandchildren through his daughter so his lineage and his cousin married his daughter and so they were in the Sunni tradition but the Shiites said they are the most qualified to be our political leaders and they pretty much put them in a position of like maybe Pope like might be a word but this bloodline is protected by God they don't make errors and they are pure. In the Sunni tradition they said they are honored and they are spiritual, they have spiritual mastery but then they don't have political claim and so that's really where that division happened and that division came when the fourth caliph the one that I talked about he was the son of Muhammad and during his reign there was a lot of strike some supported him others supported another side and then they just sort of broke off and what was initially a political difference turned into a theological one who has more right as we believe that the best man should lead that's kind of a spin it really is simply just a question of does the Prophet Muhammad's family have a special status politically or is it spiritually for us it's a spiritual reaction one more question my name is Lila I like to read about our history as Christians and the sects that have come over the years over the millennia and I was reading a book called O God But God by the same author of the zealot I recommend it but I'm wondering if you have any other books that you would recommend for understanding yes it's almost as if I'm playing to you in the audience I get that question often and today for some reason I remembered I called my older son hey go grab this book and that book and then he was like what do you need all these books for because people always ask and I think it is important thank you okay so the first one is written by Karen Armstrong she's on the Prophet Muhammad it's called Muhammad a Prophet for our time it's a good summary of his life and his mission and message sort of melded it together and I think that we all would like to thank you so much this is a new book that just came out and I really like it actually it's called The Thinking Person's Guide to Islam and the author he's a Jordanian Prince he's sort of like the Prince Charles you know to somebody who spends all his time just like reading and thinking very erudite but he's of the Jordanian monarchy but he's a religious scholar and he wrote this book called The Thinking Person's Guide to Islam he chooses 12 verses in 12 chapters he thinks summarizes the message of Islam and he does a lot of debunking of misunderstandings as well in that way he says that the crisis for both sets of people who misunderstand Islam both what he calls the radical jihadists or the people of Islamophones I guess is there more common term being used right now is a lack of thinking about Islam and he says that if you were to think about these verses and look at the big picture instead of chair to take Prince Ghazi G-H-A-Z-I and his last name is Muhammad Muhammad this is one of my so I have two copies of this one is my really foreign like to them we have another one that's like this is a book that never gets old like you finish it and you go right back to the beginning this is written by Hamza Yusuf who is that scholar local here to the big area that I told you about this is a book on the third dimension of Ahsan of making the soul beautiful and this is a great summary of the Islamic spiritual tradition just briefly it talks about how to rid oneself of being a miser having hatred, love of the world envy, fear of poverty ostentation, relying on other gods, etc. so all the spiritual diseases purification of the heart and the author's name is Hamza H-A-M as in Michael Z-A and Y-U-S-U-M can you think I can email you this do you guys have like the yeah I think we'll do that and this and I thought of an interesting coincidence on the way over here but this is called it's the creed of Imam al-Haoui let's talk about that last name this is one of the earliest creedal works of Islamic history that all Muslims agree on so if you had like what do Muslims believe this is a great a great book and I was thinking about it on the way here Dr. Rowan Williams who's a former Archbishop at Canterbury wrote one of the Lords on the Back so I thought that was kind of an interesting number and this is probably yeah this is just my favorite thing that come out in the last year it's called the study of Quran my Harper one press and it is a tone of just a wealth of information so any verse in the Quran you can go to it and look up what it means according to classical commentary and the Broad and Muslim tradition this took a team of several scholars I think about four five scholars ten years to produce it's unbelievable I mean it's a mind blowing work and there are several essays in the back for those who really want to get into several essays on the back that are more thematic so what does the Quran say about various subjects in the back the Quran the Quran in ethics the Quran in the afterlife great summary for those who are more academically inclined and really want to read for hours and hours the problem with it once you open it you don't need to open it you don't need to open it I think we're out of time so let's give them a round of applause Sunday more significant Sunday for some people but it's Sunday and I know you're here to worship and it's spending extra time here to learn about another religion really shows a type of intellectual empathy that is very important to have nowadays the Muslim community is feeling pretty these are interesting times for us so these gestures really can mean a lot so on behalf of all Muslims trust me we really appreciate people thank you